Enshrouded 1.0 Best Base Locations (10 Places Worth Building)

The best base location in Enshrouded is Fort Kelvin thanks to its huge walled footprint, existing buildings, nearby meadow, pond, loot, and easy access to scrap metal. Other top picks include Woodgard for ready-made structures, Riverreach for running water, and Blue Goblet Tavern for players who want a cozy base with minimal rebuilding.

Picking a base in Enshrouded is easy. Picking one you’ll still enjoy 20 hours later is a different story.

A good location needs more than a nice view. Building space matters, but so do nearby resources, safety, existing structures, water access, and how annoying the journey becomes every time you need supplies.

If you’re comparing Enshrouded base locations for your next playthrough, we’ve ranked 10 of the strongest spots across Embervale, from practical early-game farms to huge late-game settlements. These are some of the best Enshrouded base locations if you want somewhere that feels useful rather than simply looking good in screenshots.

#How We Ranked These Enshrouded 1.0 Base Locations

For this list, we focused on locations that give you a genuine reason to move in.

We ranked each area based on:

1. Building space: How much room do you actually have to expand?
2. Existing buildings: Can you renovate instead of starting with an empty field?
3. Long-term usefulness: Will the spot still make sense later in your playthrough?
4. Safety: How much trouble is waiting outside your front door?
5. Water access: Is there a pond, lake, river, or usable running water nearby?
6. Resources: What useful materials can you collect without travelling halfway across Embervale?

The strongest Enshrouded 1.0 base locations balance several of these instead of excelling at only one. After all, the good base locations Enshrouded players remember are usually the ones that are both practical and fun to build in.

Here’s our countdown.

#10. Dragondream Lake

Dragondream Lake sits in the Veilwater Basin and is easily one of the prettiest locations on this list. The turquoise water, surrounding jungle, and island settlement give the area a completely different feel from the forests and open fields you’ll spend much of the game exploring.

There is one small problem: somebody already lives there.

The island is home to Driftwood Wake, an enemy village, while a Scavenger outpost can be found on the western shore. You’ll need to clear both before thinking about your dream lakeside build.

• Best for: Scenic late-game bases and island settlements
• Main drawback: Enemies and limited flat terrain

Most of the shoreline is rocky or covered in jungle, making the central island the easiest area to work with. That limits expansion compared with some locations further down this list, but for pure atmosphere, Dragondream Lake is hard to beat.

#9. Shorewatch

Next is Shorewatch, a huge sandstone complex in the far south of the Kindlewastes.

This place looks more like a palace than a starter base. Green roofs, towers, terraces, and defensive walls cover a red-rock mesa surrounded by deep Shroud canyons. If you want a dramatic desert fortress without constructing every wall yourself, Shorewatch gives you an excellent starting point.

The catch is its location.

• Best for: Large fortress builds
• Main drawback: Long supply runs

Shorewatch is far to the south, where convenient travel options are limited. That means forgetting a resource during a building session can turn into a much longer trip than you expected.

It’s impressive, but you’ll probably want to arrive prepared.

#8. Ferndale

Ferndale is one of our favourite early-game choices because it gives you useful infrastructure without making the location feel completely finished.

The Springlands ruins surround a central plaza, complete with a roofed well. You’ll also find garden plots already growing corn, while a clear pond with a small jetty sits just north of the settlement.

It has everything you need for a relaxed countryside base.

• Existing ruins give you plenty to renovate.
• The central plaza creates a natural hub for crafting stations.
• Nearby water makes the area feel more like a real settlement.
• Existing farmland gives agricultural builds an obvious starting point.

Shroud-filled gullies border two sides of Ferndale, though, so expansion is more restricted than the open landscape initially suggests.

For players searching for Enshrouded good base locations during the opening portion of a playthrough, Ferndale is definitely worth considering.

#7. Harvest Homestead

If Ferndale feels a little too ruined for your taste, Harvest Homestead is the tidier alternative.

Also located in the Springlands, this farm comes with a two-story house, barn, and terraced fields. You can move in, repair what needs fixing, add your crafting setup, and have something resembling a proper home remarkably quickly.

It’s also in a relatively comfortable early-game area, making it a great first permanent base.

The downside is space.

Harvest Homestead isn't particularly large, and once your crafting operation starts growing, the available footprint can feel restrictive. A Shroud gorge also runs along the eastern side of the property.

For a solo player or small group, though, it has loads of character.

#6. Rothstep

Rothstep takes us into the Albaneve Summits and firmly into late-game territory.

Instead of open farmland, you get a stone village built directly into a dramatic cliff. Houses surround a paved courtyard, while the settlement’s great hall has huge windows overlooking the surrounding landscape. There’s even a mining crane beside the hall.

More importantly, useful materials are close by.

A mine can be found just west of Rothstep, with a marble quarry to the south. That makes the village particularly appealing if you expect to do a lot of high-end building.

The problem is the cliff itself.

Flat building space is scarce, so Rothstep works better for players who enjoy renovating and adapting existing structures than people who want to create a massive custom settlement from scratch.

#5. Cromville Throneroom

Want an actual castle? Cromville Throneroom delivers.

Located on the northwestern edge of the Veilwater Basin, this huge fortress stretches along a ridge above a sea of pink Shroud. It comes with turreted towers, paved areas, walls, and enough medieval atmosphere to make your old square wooden starter house look slightly embarrassing.

#Why Cromville Throneroom Works

The biggest advantage is simple: so much of the difficult construction has already been done.

Instead of spending hours laying the foundations for a castle, you can focus on restoring rooms, decorating interiors, creating workshops, and turning the complex into something that feels like your own.

There are two major catches, however.

First, this is the most dangerous location in our ranking, with level 45 enemies around the area. Second, the complex is huge enough that you may need around two to three Flame Altars to properly cover the site.

Cromville is a commitment, but few locations can match its scale.

#4. Blue Goblet Tavern

There’s a reason the Blue Goblet Tavern has become such a popular Enshrouded base.

Found in Revelwood, the three-story tavern sits on top of a rocky hill and already feels surprisingly complete when you arrive. Inside, you’ll find stairs leading to an upper gallery, along with details such as a chandelier and banners.

You can renovate the building without stripping away the personality that makes it interesting in the first place.

#A Great Base If You Don't Want to Start From Zero

The Blue Goblet works especially well for players who enjoy decorating interiors more than constructing giant buildings.

There’s also a copper mine a short distance southwest, giving you a useful resource nearby.

Its elevated position comes with one downside: the hilltop doesn't leave much room for major expansion. You'll also need to deal with the local spiders before settling in.

Still, if your idea of a perfect base involves a warm tavern instead of another enormous castle, this might be your favourite spot on the list.

#Building a Base With Friends?

Some of these locations are big enough to turn into entire player-built towns, especially when you have a few friends helping.

If your group wants to work on the same world without relying on one player to host every session, Enshrouded server hosting gives you a persistent dedicated world that your friends can join independently. That means somebody can gather materials, another player can renovate the castle, and someone else can spend three hours making the tavern kitchen unnecessarily detailed.

Your world stays available even when the person who originally started the build isn't online.

Now, back to the countdown.

#3. Riverreach

Riverreach is where Enshrouded's building possibilities get really interesting.

This late-game Veilwater Basin town is constructed in tiers alongside a dam at the lake’s largest waterfall. Two water wheels sit within a central water channel, and the entire area has a completely different character from a traditional hilltop fortress.

#Why Running Water Matters

Running water isn't just decorative here. It can be used with a water wheel to power your mill, giving the location a practical advantage as well as an impressive backdrop.

There’s also a palm-lined beach beside the neighbouring lagoon, making Riverreach one of the more varied locations on the list.

There are a couple of things to know before moving in:

• Most usable flat ground is found on the existing terraces.
• Riverreach is connected to the Obtaining a Mill quest.
• It makes sense to finish the quest before turning the entire town into your personal construction project.

For players who enjoy building around existing terrain rather than flattening everything, Riverreach is excellent.

#2. Woodgard

Woodgard nearly takes the top spot.

Located in the Springlands west of the Ancient Spire, this settlement gives you several substantial buildings from the moment you arrive. There’s a church with a tower, a large tiled hall, an open courtyard, and enough surrounding room to make the village feel like somewhere you can keep developing for a long time.

You also get a pond with a jetty a short walk west and corn fields to the east.

That combination of buildings, farmland, water, and location makes Woodgard one of the most flexible choices in the entire game.

Its main annoyance is a pocket of Shroud sitting inside the village itself. It doesn't ruin the location, but you'll need to build around the problem rather than treating the whole settlement as completely safe open space.

If you want something bigger than Harvest Homestead without heading deep into a late-game region, Woodgard is a fantastic choice.

#1. Fort Kelvin: The Best Base Location in Enshrouded

Fort Kelvin takes our number one spot because nothing else on this list gives you quite as much to work with immediately.

Sitting between the Springlands and Revelwood, Fort Kelvin is less like claiming a house and more like inheriting an abandoned town.

You get walls, a paved courtyard, a watchtower, multiple existing structures, and enough room to create dedicated areas for crafting, storage, farming, and whatever slightly ridiculous construction project your group decides it needs next.

#Why Fort Kelvin Is Number One

The surrounding area is just as useful as the town itself.

There are roughly 16 chests within 150 metres, while nearby Scavenger camps give you a convenient source of scrap metal. Head west and you'll find open meadow plus a pond, giving you additional room when the existing settlement starts feeling crowded.

The nearby sacrificial Vukah pit sits in the Shroud right beside town, so Fort Kelvin isn't completely free from danger.

But that's a small trade-off for the amount of usable infrastructure you get.

Fort Kelvin works for builders who want to restore an existing town, players who need room for a large crafting setup, and multiplayer groups who want enough space to spread out without building completely separate bases.

Out of all the locations we tested, it’s the most complete package.

#What Are the Best Base Locations Enshrouded Players Should Choose?

The right choice ultimately depends on how you like to play.

If you're still early in the game, Harvest Homestead and Ferndale are easy to settle into without travelling into dangerous territory. Players who care more about atmosphere should look at Blue Goblet Tavern or Dragondream Lake, while builders who want a serious renovation project can take over Cromville Throneroom.

For late-game utility, Riverreach gets a major boost from its running water.

And if you simply want as much space, infrastructure, and flexibility as possible, Fort Kelvin is our pick for the best overall location.

So, our final ranking of the Enshrouded best base locations is:

1. Fort Kelvin
2. Woodgard
3. Riverreach
4. Blue Goblet Tavern
5. Cromville Throneroom
6. Rothstep
7. Harvest Homestead
8. Ferndale
9. Shorewatch
10. Dragondream Lake

There isn't really one perfect base for every player. The best spot is the one that fits how much building you want to do, which resources matter to you, and whether you'd rather renovate an existing settlement or build something completely new.

But if you're choosing between the best base locations Enshrouded has to offer in 1.0, these ten give you some seriously good places to start.

Where are you building your next base?

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2. What To Expect From Enshrouded 1.0 (Everything New in the Full Release)
3. Where to Find and Farm Tin Ore in Enshrouded (Locations Explained)